Case Studies

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Virgin Active wanted to better utilise audience location data to boost walk ins and drive engagement among customers, which is an interesting move for a gym, which would not usually rely on spontaneous walk ins to increase membership.

However, by serving targeted ads, mostly to students in the vicinity, Near were able to increase walk in by 70% in the first phase of the campaign, and 82% in the second. The improvements in this percentage can be put down to audience optimisations throughout the campaign.

Case Study Content

Leading health club Virgin Active partnered with Ambient Intelligence Platform Near to increase consumer engagement and boost membership enrolment. Using its SaaS product Allspark, Near developed and executed an effective two-phase campaign strategy to identify and reach Virgin Active’s target audience.

In the first phase of the campaign, Virgin Active’s target audience was created in Allspark using multiple data sets. These users were then targeted with a dynamic mobile ad when they fell within a close proximity to a Virgin Active Health Club. Near also conducted a detailed attribution study to determine how many people saw the mobile ad and then walked into a nearby club.

The campaign generated 70% uplift in walk-ins during the first phase, which increased to 82% in the second phase. Most importantly, the average cost per walk-in was reduced by 62%. This indicated that curating the right audience, targeting them at the right time, and in real-time whilst carrying out optimisations based on historical learnings has a tremendous impact on the effectiveness ad campaigns.